the meetinghouse

Saturday, Rachel's memorial service was held in this Quaker meetinghouse in New York on Rutherford Place beside Styvesant Park.

As a child we chanted the rhyme: Quaker meeting has begun, no more laughing no more fun.

The space seems somber, but somehow lighter than earth. It especially appeals to me esthetically when it is empty of people. It's a light collector.

Dorcas gave the major eulogy. Brother Mel was there; we sang "Gott ist die Liebe" in a small choral ensemble. Monroe gave a profound tribute and benediction.

Maryland pick up

"Attacks and counterattacks swept across Miller's cornfield and fighting swirled around the Dunker Church." That's a sentence from wikipedia's entry on Antietam, which was the bloodiest battle in the Civil War, it adds. Antietam is close to this MacDonalds in Maryland. Twenty-three thousand soldiers were killed here on Sept. 17, 1862. And they weren't shoving in line to get a hamburger.

This is exit 9A of Interstate 70, just east of the 81/70 intersection close to Hagerstown.

One single death brought me here last Monday--Rachel's. I came here to pick up Evelyn Brown, a retired colleague of the Yoders in the work at Seventh Avenue Mennonite Church. She had come from Charleston, S.C.

The Maryland state flag salutes the power of the mega-hamburger joint. We're all looking for some authentication, I guess.

funereal detour

Out of the blue, Dorcas' sister, Rachel Yoder, died suddenly, on Ascension Day. Rachel and Monroe lived in New York. On their way to Grantsville, Maryland, she took sick and died in a Harrisburg hospital.

On Wednesday the funeral was held at the Maple Glen Mennonite Church, Grantsville, and the burial was in this cemetery beside the church.

For over forty years their church was Seventh Avenue Mennonite Church. A good two dozen members and friends of that neighborhood and church and others from the Bronx attended.

sister-in-law dies

My sister-in-law, Rachel, Dorcas's next oldest sister, passed away last evening at 9:25 p.m. in the Harrisburg (Pa.) Hospital, as Monroe her husband (in photo) and Dorcas and I and the hospital chaplain attended around the bed.

There was not a clearly defined moment of the final heartbeat, but Nurse Craig quietly informed Monroe as life signs exited the stage one by one. Dorcas put her hand on her forehead as life was slipping away and prayed one of the psalms.

The chaplain offered that we hold hands circling the bed as she (the African-American chaplain in jeans) prayed.

At Monterey we all loved her and called her Aunt Rachel as the children grew up. A vibrant, faithful, creative center of energy, even as her physical limitations increased, here she is at Joel's wedding reception last November. Photo by Lois Maust.

God rest her.